


Jonk and Worm Launch a Nuke

by Jonkular



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4, Fallout 76
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:21:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28343814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jonkular/pseuds/Jonkular
Kudos: 3





	1. Chapter 1

Jonk leaned back in the rocket shaped cart and closed her eyes. Her and Worm were at the Tyler County Fairground doing the same thing they did most days; scavenging for supplies and food. It was a hot summer day and they had just finished clearing out the area of a swarm of scorched that had taken residence here. Neither her nor Worm knew what these things were. They looked like red burnt ghouls with some bizarre green crystals sticking out of their skin, and they would let out ghastly cries and every once in a while say words like “kill”. They couldn’t be ghouls, at least not 100%. Even if they were some distant cousin to a ghoul they still had the wherewithal to use a gun and say some words, and Jonk had never seen a ghoul do that before. Jonk wondered if perhaps it were possible for a ghoul to still retain their brain somehow. If somehow the radiation could affect the rest of the body but not the mind. “It doesn’t matter” she supposes. 

Jonk tried to relax but the dead scorched smelled. They hadn’t been dead long, but even living scorched smelled like a disgusting combination of bbq and rotten chicken meat. She could hear the flies being attracted to their corpses. She heard Worm rummaging a booth nearby. “BLAMCO MAC AND CHEESE,” Worm exclaimed. 

Jonk supposed she should be helping. She wasn’t getting any good rest anyways. As she leaned up she looked down and saw a box of 10 mm rounds. She grabbed it, and hopped out of the cart. “Hey Worm!” 

Worm poked up from behind the counter of the booth. 

“Catch!” Jonk tossed the box of 10mm rounds at her. 

Worm just watched the ammo fly through the air and hit the front of the booth, landing on the ground in front of it. “Wow, thanks,” She jumped over the counter and grabbed the box of ammo. 

Jonk had terrible aim. She depended heavily on V.A.T.S. to guide her shooting, but even then she preferred using melee weapons. She was a lot stronger than she looked, and to be quite honest bullets aren’t as effective against the creatures of the wasteland as one would think. 

“I’m gonna go look for stuff over there,” Jonk said, pointing in a direction that didn’t matter, “Are we looking for anything in particular?” 

“Anything and everything,” Worm replied, focused on unlocking a toolbox she found, “I’d say stimpaks and antibiotics, but that should be a given.” 

“Got it.” 

Jonk strolled over to the other side of the camp, kicking a rock as she moved along. She looked to her left and saw a hospital booth. Jackpot. She climbed over the counter and started rummaging through drawers, coolers, and toolboxes. She was pretty lucky when it came to finding medical supplies. She found two stimpaks, a diluted radaway, and some psycho. She also found a toy car and a box with four .308 rounds. 

“Why are there so many drugs and bullets everywhere?” she said to herself under her breath. She wasn’t complaining, but the fact that she frequently found military grade weapons in the strangest of places always made her wonder about what kind of world this must’ve been before the bombs dropped. 

Jonk jumped from behind the counter and continued roaming the fairground when towards the road she saw in her peripheral a flash, followed by a loud explosion. Jonk, knowing exactly what it was, took cover in a nearby booth real quick. Once she was sure all the shrapnel had settled, she jogged to the source of the explosion. Of course Worm was standing a couple of meters away from the charred, still burning car that had exploded. If you shot these fusion (fission? Jonk doesn’t know. They’re basically the same thing right?) cars enough, they would blow up “Worm! Dammit, you’re gonna attract every creature in a mile radius!) 

“It wasn’t me this time,” Worm said, not bothering to look at Jonk. 

Jonk heard a raspy groan come from the car, and Jonk saw what Worm was looking at. A scorched (A scorched scorched) with two mangled, burnt legs was crawling towards them using its arms. 

Had this scorched blown up the car? I mean it could use a gun, but why would it shoot at a car? Would it know that the car would explode? What a strange creature. 

The scorched let out another raspy groan. Jonk supposed it was meant to sound threatening, but it was very strained. Worms face twisted into a disgusted grimace. She raised her 10 mm pistol and shot it in the head. The scorched went limp, and after the echo of the shot subsided, the only noise was the sound of the flames still burning on parts of the car. Worm and Jonk looked at each other and shrugged. “Let’s spend like 20 more minutes looking for stuff and leave,” Worm said, “I’m not really feeling this today.” 

"Yeah, if we leave soon we camp out in front of Vault 76 on the way to your C.A.M.P.” Jonk replied. 

Turns out the nuclear apocalypse was really boring. It was the same thing day in and day out. Wake up, find food, find water, maybe find some supplies you can use to repair your C.A.M.P., sleep, repeat. Jonk mostly stayed at Worm’s C.A.M.P. a little North of Charleston. Jonk had set her own C.A.M.P. up further East on the edge of a cliff near some astronomy tower, but the creatures out there are more dangerous, and honestly she’d just be doing the same boring scavenging out there. She’d rather have the company. Initially when they left vault 76 they were tasked with a mission by the overseer. Something something find silo something something. But Worm and Jonk (and presumably many others) were so preoccupied with just surviving, neither of them had any real interest in trying to do anything for vault tec. What were they going to do? Kick them out of the vault? Besides, Vault-tec’s weird eugenic strategy of gathering the best and the brightest to go into vault 76 really backfired on them because their offspring were spoiled and mediocre. Nobody can attest to that more than Worm and Jonk. Jonk was pretty strong, and Worm was an okay shot, but neither of them got very high marks on any of their training in the vault, and honestly now that they’re out in the real world, they’re not doing so hot. But they are alive, and quite frankly that’s more than a lot of others can say. During those initial months out of the vault (known by many as the red autumn) many of their fellow vault dwellers died. Everyone was expecting to go into an empty quiet world where the biggest danger would be radiation and food poisoning, but what everyone found was a terrifying hellscape where everything was trying to kill you. No one has the official count, but most think that more than half the vault dwellers were wiped out in those first few months. So are Worm and Jonk more capable than those who died, or is it just luck that they’ve survived this long? 

“Luck. Definitely luck,” Jonk said. 

Jonk and Worm were finishing up their scavenging. It was getting late in the afternoon and they really needed to get going if they were going to get to vault 76 before dark. The vault has been sealed up every since recreation day, but it still makes for a relatively safe place to camp out for the night. Worm took the bag off her back and held it open while Jonk shoved whatever else she had found in there (some chems, a camera, a teddy bear). Worm closed up her bag, and they headed down the road together. They had only taken a few steps when a ghostly siren emanated from above the trees. Instinctively, Jonk and Worm lifted their right arm to activate their pipboy’s radio. A familiar robotic voice similar to that of an assaultron warned them of a nuclear strike. “Attention citizens. Nuclear strike imminent. Please exit the area at your earliest convenience. Thank you for your cooperation.” 

Jonk opened up the map on her pipboy. She knew they weren’t in any danger. For reasons unknown to her, strikes only happen in one of two places. At the Whitespring Resort, and a far south-east corner of her map that neither her nor Worm had ever been too. Neither of these places are anywhere close to them, but she wanted to check. There was a giant red circle in the far south-east corner of the map. 

Jonk always wondered who was making these strikes. Where did they come from? One time, they had been scavenging at Whitespring and they had to evacuate. They escaped to the mountains behind the train station nearby and watched as the bomb dropped. Were these bombs from the silos the overseer was talking about? Was someone from the vault actually carrying out the overseers mission? Was it the overseer herself? 

“What do you remember about the overseer and what she wanted us to do when we left?” Jonk asked. 

“Rebuild Appalachia and thrive or something like that.” 

“No, like something about a silo?” 

“Oh that, yeah I can’t remember. I wasn’t about to get kicked out of my house and then go do Vault-Tec a favor. When I saw those communist spider robots I decided right then and there that Vault-Tec can go fuck themselves.” 

“Yeah but aren’t you at least curiou-” 

“No.” They continued walking. Worm opened a can of pork and beans and they passed it back and forth between each other. Jonk couldn’t stop thinking about the bomb. Appalachia seemed so empty. Hell, ever since they had left the vault they had only seen a handful of people, all of them vault dwellers. There are no settlers out here, no factions, nothing. Who is bombing this place, and what are they bombing? And why was it only those two places? What was out there in the south-east? 

“Hey, so uh, am I gonna get any of the pork and beans that _I_ found?” 

Jonk snapped back into reality and realized she hadn’t been sharing the beans. She handed the can to Worm. 

“Thank you!” Worm said sarcastically, thrusting her head forward at Jonk. 

They spent the rest of the hike to 76 talking about the things they would do once they got back to Worm's C.A.M.P.. Worm blew up two more cars, much to Jonk's dismay, but no enemy's seemed to be attracted to the blast. Once they reached 76, they shared a can of dog food, rolled out their sleeping bags, and went to sleep. 


	2. Chapter 2

They had been back at Worm’s C.A.M.P. for three days. It was a breezy Tuesday (?) morning. Jonk didn’t pick up her pipboy to check. She was once again lounging on the edge of the boulder outside of Worm’s crudely built shack. Worms shack was built on the side of a hill on top of some rock. It overlooked a valley with a large transition tower. It was rusty with a lot of the wires broken. There was a house in the distance on the hill to her right. She was pretty sure she was looking to the North, but she once again didn’t care enough to lift her pipboy and check. Worm was inside making dinner, some poor fox that she had bludgeoned earlier that day, and razorgrain that grew in a small sunny field Jonk knew nearby. 

Jonk was incredibly bored as usual. She regrets not taking the overseers mission seriously when they were briefed about it in the vault. She was so preoccupied with exploring the world outside, she secretly knew she was never going to seriously pursue Vault-Tec’s vanity project when she left. Now she just wants something to do, some sort of purpose. But all the details of the mission are so foggy, all the documents long burnt in campfires, she wouldn’t even know where to start. 

Worm, while also not interested in pursuing the overseer’s mission, did not seem as plagued with boredom as Jonk. While they both enjoyed exploring, Worm enjoyed it on a whole different level than Jonk did. She particularly enjoyed finding clues about the old world and learning about the stories of the old settlers, particularly through holotapes (which the people of the old world seems to love recording their thoughts on, sometimes in the most inopportune moments). In a lot of ways, Worm would’ve enjoyed the mystery of the overseers mission more than Jonk, but Vault-Tec left a really bad taste in her mouth and she wasn’t particularly fond of the overseer. Jonk has asked Worm multiple times if she remembers details of the mission, but they seem just as lost to her too. 

Jonk snapped back to reality when she heard “Bleed! Bleed and die!” travel up from the valley. There was something coming this way. Jonk hopped up and ran into the shack. She slammed open the door, “Worm! Worm!” 

“What?!” 

“I think there’s a super mutant out there! Where’s your sniper rifle?” 

“To the left of you!” Worm said, already abandoning her pot to put on some armor. 

Jonk snatched the sniper rifle and ran back out to the edge of the cliff. She raised the rifle to her shoulder, bringing the scope to her right eye. Surely enough, there was a super mutant. It was running down the hill, a little beyond the transform tower. She moved the sights to the area in front of it to see what it was chasing. Worm ran up behind her, plated with various mismatched armors and her 10mm on her waist, “Well?” 

Jonk lowered the rifle from her eye and shoved the rifle into Worm’s arms, “It’s a super mutant alright. It’s chasing some person in power armor, but they look in bad shape. One of the legs is barely attached anymore.” 

“See if you can shoot it from here, I’m gonna go get my shotgun!” Jonk said before running into the shack. 

Jonk ran inside to put her armor on and grab her shotgun. She’s usually not afraid to go toe to toe with a ghoul or scorched with a sledgehammer or something similar, but a super mutant would tear her to pieces. As she grabbed some shells she could hear Worm shooting outside the shack. Jonk hoped she was hitting it, because if it wasn’t heading their way before, it definitely was now. Jonk pocketed two fragmentation grenades and left the shack. As she ran past Worm she yelled, “Are you hitting it??” 

“I dunno! This gun has a lot of recoil!” BANG “It’s not acting like it!” 

Jonk did an awkward half jog/hop down the hill so as not to twist her ankle. The person in the mangled power armor had reached the transformer tower, the super mutant chasing behind him. “Thank god!” Jonk thought to herself. The super mutant had a pipe rifle. Harder to aim and less likely to penetrate her armor. 

The super mutant had reached the person in the power armor armor turned and swung their weapon at the super mutant. It made contact to it’s face but it didn’t seem to phase it. The super mutant swung it’s open over-sized hand at the person, making contact with their helmet. The person fell over. “Thank god their wearing power armor,” Jonk thought to herself, “That’s probably like taking a cast iron skillet to the face.” 

The super mutant pulled a board off of it’s back and stepped over the person in the power armor. It’s started lifting the board over it’s head. Before it could swing Jonk had finally caught up to them, about three feet away, “HEY YOU OGRE.” 

The super mutant looked down at her, staring down the barrels of her shotgun. In the split second before she pulled the trigger she lowered the barrel to it’s left leg. BAM 

“AHHGH! WOUNDED!” the super mutant yelled as it stumbled back. 

“COME ON,” Jonk yelled at the person in the power armor as they struggled to get up. 

Jonk ran a bit ahead, the person in the power armor got up and ran behind her, “Why didn’t you kill it when you had the chance?!” they yelled, their voice sounding robotic over the voice amplifier. 

Jonk ignored them. She looked behind her and the person. The super mutant, while still going at a decent pace, was hobbling. Perfect. She pulled a grenade out of her pocket and pulled the pin out, throwing the grenade at the super mutant. They had reached the far side of the transformer tower, and Jonk ducked behind the leg. There was a loud explosion followed by a “AHHHGH” 

“Did I get it??” Jonk asked, peaking around the right side of the column. 

“Are you fucking kidding me? You threw it like 10 feet to it’s right! You just knocked it over!” the person in the power armor replied. Rather rudely in Jonk’s opinion. 

Suddenly a bullet ricocheted off the left side of the tower column they were hiding behind. There was another super mutant coming at them from the 10 o’clock position. The other super mutant was struggling to get to its feet 

“Jesus christ!” Jonk said as she removed the second fragmentation grenade. 

The person in the power armor snatched the grenade and tossed it at the new super mutant softball style. By the time it was about to detonate it had rolled to an almost perfect position at the feet of the super mutant. Jonk covered her ears and faced away during the explosion. Jonk looked back where the super mutant had been. There was just scorched earth, a large chunk of it had flown about ten feet to the right. Jonk then heard someone yell, “Y’all go!” 

It was Worm. She was doing a light jog towards them. Jonk turned towards the other super mutant. It was on it’s feet fumbling with it’s pipe pistol as it inched towards them. They had plenty of time to retreat. “Y’all get up to the shack. You really need to get that leg looked at.” 

Jonk looked down at the person with the power armors leg. The armor had completely detached, leaving just the frame. Blood covered the metal. Jonk and the person in the power armor climbed up the hill as they heard a BANG behind them. Jonk opened the door to the shack, letting the person in the power armor in. They seemed to be worse off for climbing that hill. 

“Thank you,” they said, “I need you to get behind me and help me out.” 

Jonk positioned herself behind them as the back of the power armor butterflied opened. As the person fell back they let out a cry of pain. Jonk looked at the leg. It was pretty bad but probably not ‘lose your leg’ bad. It looked like parts of the armor frame were bent inward and stabbed into the legs, ripping out when he came out of the power armor. Jonk would have to work quickly to stop them from losing blood. Jonk basically tossed the person into a nearby chair. She ran to a crudely built set of drawers next to Worm’s bed and pulled out a clown costume. Only wondering where it had come from for half a second, she quickly tore it into strips and took them over the person, knelled next to their leg, and began tightly bandaging the leg. 

“Ow. Ow. **OW.** ” 

Jonk was unphased, “There. That’ll stop the bleeding for now, let me see if I can find something more proper to use as a bandage. Maybe a splint and some vodka.” 

Jonk got up. The person was looking a little pale and out of it. Jonk snapped her fingers in their face, “Hey, I need you to stay with me. Hey, can you tell me your name?” 

“T.C.” 

“T.C.? Like the letters?” Jonk asked as she approached a chemistry station. 

“Yeah.” 

“What brought you out here?” Jonk was approaching T.C., “Here, take this.” 

Jonk handed T.C. a stimpak. Instinctively T.C. took the top off and stabbed it into their leg. Immediately color started returning to their face. Jonk handed T.C. a pill, “Take this. Hopefully it’ll prevent infection. I’ll give you one more later, but that’s all the antibiotics we can afford to give you.” 

“Thank you,” T.C. said, then dry swallowed the pill. 

Jonk went to the corner that was supposed to be the kitchen and rummaged through a bag. “You didn’t tell me why you were out here. Are you from 76?” 

“Yeah, I’m from 76. Me and my team were coming back from checking out point pleasant. We were headed back towards Whitespring when we got ambushed by super mutants. We got separated.” 

Jonk contemplated that for a second. T.C. was wearing T-60 power armor earlier. On top of that it seemed to be customized. Jonk wasn’t sure she’d even know how to use power armor, let alone customize it. She knew that some people in the vault were trained to use power armor, people with a higher aptitude in things like marksmanship and hand to hand combat. They were like the spec-ops they learned about in their military history class. Jonk found some proper bandages and began re-bandaging the leg. A strange roaring came from outside. Worm hastily came in and slammed the door shut. “BALLOONS,” she cried. 

“What?” 

“I DON’T KNOW,” she screamed frantically as she started pulling a table in front of the door, “There are these, I don’t know, fucking glowing mutant BALLOON.” 

Jonk tried recalling her knowledge of the creatures of Appalachia. Nothing came to mind. Maybe a glowing snallygaster or something? Sometimes creatures became so irradiated they’d start glowing. 

“It’s a floater,” T.C. said, “They probably came with the super mutants.” 

“A what?” Jonk asked. 

She tied off the bandage and approached one of the windows. She opened the shutters. 

“NO!” “STOP!” Worm and T.C. screamed at the same time, overlapping. 

Jonk saw something she could barely describe. It looked like perhaps a black shriveled squid with one eye and teeth, with a large bulbous head shaped like a lightbulb made of flesh. It glowed blue. It opened his mouth and Jonk slammed the blinds, “WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT THING?” 

At the same time, the floater let out a guttural scream. There was a large bang on the wall and blue mist seeped through the cracks. Jonk fell backwards. The mist didn’t touch Jonk but she instantly felt freezing cold. T.C. tried to stand up, let out a yell and fell back down into the chair. “Close the doors and windows!” they screamed. Worm was way ahead of them, already closing all of the shutters. Jonk wondered how much it would matter. No offense to Worm, but this wasn’t exactly a fortress. Jonk looked at T.C. “How do we kill it?” 

“Like anything else,” T.C. yelled as the floater let out another freezing attack on the west wall, “you shoot at it!” 

Jonk got on her feet. She grabbed T.C.’s laser rifle that was by the foot of their empty power armor. “I’m out of fusion cells!” they yelled. 

“Crap.” Jonk thought to herself. She had to get some fusion cells. Or she could go grab her shotgun. She really didn’t have time to plan. She ran to the toolbox where her and Worm carried ammo. They had collected plenty of fusion cells because neither her nor Worm owned an energy weapon. They were pretty coveted in Appalachia. She frantically shoved a fusion cell in the laser rifle when she heard Worm let out a yell. The floater had blasted the southwest window clear open. Worm swapped places with Jonk as Jonk ran towards the window. Only five feet from the floater, point blank range. Even Jonk couldn’t fuck this up. Jonk switched the safety off and she heard the rifle whirring to life. She pulled the trigger. 

The gun fired off what felt like 20 rounds in half a second, and sent Jonk flying back about four feet. “Shit,” she thought in what felt like slow motion as she flew back through the air, “It’s automatic.” 

Luckily, she had hit the floater. The floater retreated back in pain and let out another guttural scream, but no icy attack. Jonk struggled onto her arms to prop herself up. Most of the window was gone from the blast of the laser pistol. Jonk watched the floater writhe in pain, screaming. “GET BACK GET BACK GET BACK” T.C. screamed. 

Worm grabbed Jonk by the collar and unceremoniously dragged her as far away from the window as possible. The floater bloated to twice its size and exploded in a frozen blue mist, taking out the corner of the shack with it. 

Silence for a few seconds as they tried to process what just happened. 

“What was that…” said Jonk finally. 

“I told you it’s a floater,” T.C. said, “At least that’s what we call it. As far as we can tell, it’s some sort of mutant worm. They hang out with super mutants sometimes.” 

“Who’s we?” Jonk asked. 

“Me and my team,” T.C. replied. 

“Oh, right.” 

“Great,” Worm said from over by where the piece of wall was missing. The explosion (what would you call a frozen explosion?) had knocked over the wood stove and the pot of fox stew on top of it. It was frozen to the floor.


End file.
